More than a dozen years after the Minnesota Vikings started lobbying the state for money for a new stadium, and nineteen months after lawmakers finally said yes, the billion-dollar project got its official start Tuesday.

At a reception before the groundbreaking in Minneapolis, Gov. Mark Dayton joked that he felt like coach Leslie Frazier must have after the Vikings’ overtime victory Sunday against the Bears. “I can’t believe it’s over, and I can’t believe we won,” he said.

Dayton spearheaded the effort that led to the deal in May 2012 in which the state put up $348 million, Minneapolis pitched in $150 million and the team contributed $477 million.

Opponents ripped the deal as a bad bet for taxpayers, and they were still at it Tuesday. As elected officials, team dignitaries and fans gathered for the groundbreaking at the Metrodome, stadium foes held a counter-event at the state Capitol in St. Paul.

The stadium is going up on the same site as the 31-year-old Dome, which will be dismantled starting early next year. Excavation work began in earnest Monday, with about 11,000 yards of dirt being trucked away.

Tuesday’s event was largely ceremonial, and speakers spent a lot of time on mutual congratulation and superlatives.

Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority chairwoman Michele Kelm-Helgen said the new arena will be “the most iconic stadium in the world.” Said Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak: “No football experience in the United States of America is woven into the urban fabric until this one. This will transform the way we look at these facilities.”

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson got a standing ovation when he rose to speak, as did Dayton.

The Vikings’ last scheduled game at the Dome is Dec. 29. They’ll play the 2014 and 2015 seasons outdoors at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium.

Peterson said he and his teammates are looking forward to playing in the new stadium. “The one thing I’m not looking forward to is playing outside for two years.”

Stadium officials said the tent where the reception was held could accommodate about 600 people, and about 100 tickets were given out to the general public.

Dana Wright of Eagan took her 4-year-old grandson, Ethan Kuhn. “I love the Vikings,” said Wright, who wore a Jared Allen jersey but said she’s also a huge Christian Ponder fan. “It’s not all his fault,” she offered as a defense of the quarterback’s play during this losing season.

Wandering around the reception tent were several former Vikings, including coach Bud Grant and players Carl Eller, Stu Voigt and Bob Lurtsema. Frazier attended, as did general manager Rick Spielman.

Minneapolis Mayor-elect Betsy Hodges, who voted against the stadium plan as a member of the city council, attended but was not featured in the program.

“I’m very excited to help the project go well moving forward,” said Hodges, who has been working with the stadium implementation committee.

After the speeches, the group walked out to the east parking lot, where there was a mound of dirt waiting along with gold-tipped shovels and purple hard hats.

Dayton, the Wilfs, Rybak, Kelm-Helgen and Mortenson threw the first shovelfuls of dirt at 10:47 a.m., followed by fireworks.

A spokeswoman for the stadium authority said final costs for Tuesday’s event were not yet tallied, but that the tab was being split with the Vikings.

Leaders of conservative groups predicted stadium proponents would be back for more state funding to finish the project.

“This coming legislative session, I think we can expect to see taxpayers get hit again for this,” Dan McGrath, president of Minnesota Majority, said at a Capitol press conference.

The stadium will be built, “but the deal is not fully funded yet,” said former state Sen. Ted Lillie, president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.

He noted that the original source of the state’s contribution — taxes on electronic pulltabs and bingo — is falling far short of projections. He warned that stadium backers would try to tap tax dollars that would otherwise go to the state’s general fund.

Last May, Dayton, a DFLer, and the DFL-led Legislature shored up the state’s ability to pay its share of stadium costs with a one-time cigarette tax that generated $26.5 million and an ongoing corporate tax-law change that will provide $20 million a year, if needed.

The original stadium bill was passed when Republicans controlled the Legislature.

The funding backstops would still leave the state short about $10 million a year if bond payments turn out to be $33.5 million per year, as has been projected, but state officials have said those payments may turn out to be lower and that Minneapolis will be picking up a greater share of the stadium tab as time goes on.

If more funding does become necessary to complete the stadium, state Sen. Dave Thompson, a Lakeville Republican who is running for governor, said stadium users and the Vikings owners should foot the bill.

The Wilfs did recently put up $26.4 million in contingency money, in effect pushing the total cost of the $975 million stadium project over $1 billion. Team vice president Lester Bagley told KFAN radio Tuesday the owners may put in more as construction proceeds.

Dayton shot back at stadium critics Tuesday. “They’re not putting a single person to work. The only jobs they care about are their own,” he said. “It’s easy to demagogue a project of this size and scale, but there are going to be thousands of Minnesotans working on this project, on the Ryan project right next to it, that would not be working without these initiatives. So, you know, the naysayers can just go say nay.”

The Wilfs said they hope hard feelings on financing and a range of other stadium issues will dissipate.

“From the people I’ve spoken to, I think everything’s been smoothed over pretty nicely,” said Zygi Wilf.

Mark Wilf said once the building starts going up, “I think the excitement and the good feeling about what this means for the state and the city are going to overcome a lot of those feelings.”

— Work on the new Vikings stadium begins in the northeast corner of the site beside the Metrodome in Minneapolis. As the Dome is torn down, starting early next year, the concrete frame for the new facility will be put up.

— The concrete structure should be ready for installation of steel for the roof in about August 2014, said Mortenson Construction senior vice president John Wood. Steel erection will take until summer 2015, followed by installation of the transparent roofing material in fall 2015.

— The building should be enclosed, water tight and have heating near the end of 2015, Wood said, leaving about six months for interior finishes to be completed in time for the stadium to open in July 2016.

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